


Mine Is Bigger

by Soignee



Series: Autonomy Universe [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Tongue-in-cheek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 07:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10871532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soignee/pseuds/Soignee
Summary: The crew of the Tempest take part in a measuring contest, down to the last centimetre.





	Mine Is Bigger

Scott was a morning person, much like his sister. He knew she would fit into the Tempest’s routine early, but to see her in the kitchen sandwiched by its surliest of night owls amused him.

Jaal was prone to sighs and glares if you spoke to him before he had something to eat, intent in staring a hole into the table. Liam was less likely to pout, but needed a cup of coffee before he could function. Both dwarfed his sister like statues on the bench, to the point where she could barely move an elbow.

All were in need of breakfast to happen soon. “This the infamous Angaran nutrient paste, then?” She said to Jaal, trying to start a conversation. Drack ignored them all to cook, stirring at a pot on the stove. Scott knew he was watching the trio though, especially since the subject of paste was mentioned.

With a wordless gesture Jaal offered his breakfast to try, still refusing to speak. “I don’t like the stuff,” Scott said casually, trying not to look at her. If he said it was delicious, she would be suspicious. “Tastes like those weird Salarian fruit rolls you like.” It was nothing like the sort, but hoped it was a good enough bluff to tempt her.

“I wouldn’t,” said Liam, awake just enough to warn her. “But you got to try it at least once, ship’s rules.”

Tentatively Sara took a small amount and predictable gagging followed after. “Asshole,” she muttered Scott’s way as he laughed, reaching for something to scrub the taste from her tongue.

“Have some coffee, Titch,” shoving a cup of it under nose.

“Still calling me that?” Sara said, annoyed at the paste trick. At least she could chase it away with the porridge Drack gave her, even if it was just oatmeal.

“It’s my job to. You’ll always be the tichiest of tinies and-”

“-Scott,” she warned.

“-the smallest of small to me,” ignoring her protests, as usual. “Poor little Sara.” He patted her on the head and she scowled, grumbling over idiot brothers again. Jaal nodded his head in solidarity. It was a familiar sound, their bickering- he was almost back home in Havarl, surrounded by an endless wall of siblings.

“I’m still the oldest,” she said. It was an old argument, but wrapped up in sentiment for them both. “Tiny, my ass.”

As he entered the kitchen, Kallo could see the Angaran searching for the definition of titch on his onmi-tool and smiled at the gesture. “Small is a relative term,” he said to Sara, leaning against the wall. “Considering your species, of course. I’m taller than you both. So is Drack and Jaal,” and at that Drack chuckled. He didn’t see the need to point out the large krogan in the room, since it was him in the first place. “And so is Vetra, obviously.”

Sara scraped her spoon in her bowl a little too hard. “Exactly! I don’t know why he gives me shit, he’s the the one with a Turian girlfriend. How short are you compared to her, anyway? Bet she doesn’t call you Titch.” Sara asked, swallowing her oddly delicious porridge, flavoured with some kind of Asari honey and dried fruit. Who knew Krogans could cook?

Liam looked up and gave her a wary chuckle, but Scott’s glare was enough to silence it. He felt the gaze of everyone in the room, then. Apparently it was a topic that had come up before without him present, judging by the side eyes. “She’s fifteen centimetres taller. Give or take,” said Scott. It was actually fourteen, but the precision sounded too pathetic in his head to say out loud.

Peebee poked her head in the door, a grab-and-go sort of person when it came to the mornings. “Aww, it’s only fifteen centimetres? Poor Scott,” she said, turning on her heel to leave with a ration bar.

“Hey now,” said Gil from the hallway, second coffee in hand. The conversation had drawn most of the crew to the kitchen in a way Drack’s porridge never could. “It’s not about the centimetres, it’s what you do with them that count.”

Though his mind was frantically trying to work out if fifteen centimetres of entendre was considered micro, Scott refused to rise to the bait. “Takes one to know one, does it Gil?” He said, keeping his voice even.

Ever the consummate poker master, Gil knew exactly what Scott was trying for. “Oh Ryder,” he said, and Sara flinched at the name, weird to hear baby brother being called it. “Bless you. You tried.”

“Don’t know why you’re all giving the kid shit,” Drack looked up from his pot, baffled by the conversation. “It’s not like it matters lying down, it all lines up right. And neither of ‘em are complaining, what with all the rutti-”

“I know you can all hear this,” came a voice through the speakers. Vetra had heard every word from the storage room, judging by the edge of her voice. “Next one who says anything involving centimetres gets to see how my gun measures against theirs. With live ammo rounds.” Somewhere above them in her pod, they could all hear Peebee’s cackling.

“That’s my cue to leave.” Scott shuffled around a chuckling Drack to free himself, coffee in hand. “In the event of my death, I want a space burial,” he said, walking backwards, looking at them all. “We shall not speak of this again.”

“Give her this, kid,” Drack said, ladling something warm and dextro into a bowl. “Sweeten the deal.”

“There’s this girl on the Turian Pathfinder team,” said Liam, smiling off into the distance, catching up with the conversation. “Pretty smart, and pretty tall, too. I got nothing against tall.”

“Chance will be a fine thing there,” said Gil, sauntering off to get more coffee.

“Ooh,” said Kallo, eyes wide. If there was anything he understood the most -apart from every damn nut and bolt of the ship- it was gossip. The entire conversation so far had been jotted down into a Salarian’s perfect memory, ready to tell anyone -well, just Suvi, when she came out the shower- in great detail about. “Who?”

“Their science officer.” Liam scratched at the scruff of his beard, smiling still. “She had these white boots on, made her this much taller,” and he gestured a line vaguely above his head. “Legs for days, and a blonde, too. Let’s just say I’m looking forward to the next Pathfinder training exercise.”

“And now so am I,” said Jaal in a grin, punching his friend in the arm. “You should introduce me,” getting up to rinse his bowl in the sink before Drack could yell about no one cleaning again. The quiet pulled them to their own thoughts, until Jaal spoke again. “Was the previous conversation with Scott about his genitals?”

Sara stood up fast, scrubbing a hand over her face as if it could clean off her embarrassment. “I have an appointment with Lexi,” she said, moving around a chuckling Drack.

Jaal shook his head, bemused at the reaction. “Idioms are so much harder in the mornings.”

“So’s Scott, thanks to Vetra,” Drack managed around a mouthful of porridge.

That was the comment that broke Liam. “On that interesting note, I’m off. Some of us have work this morning.”

It was a subject Jaal could not let go just yet. “With Angara, a man’s control of his bio-electrics is something you measure,” he said, nodding. “Figuratively speaking, of course. The centime-” he stopped, and thought of Vetra’s warning. “That is to say, this measuring contest is confusing. Do all Milky Way races take part?”

“From my perspective,” Kallo said, finishing his breakfast with all the ruthless quiet of a STG agent gathering intel, “I’ve certainly noticed, yes. You do all love to measure things a great deal. I have a ship to fly, gentlemen. See you all at dinner.”

“Doesn’t matter what the rest of you quadless wonders think about measuring up, a Krogan’s always gonna win,” rumbled Drack, helping himself to another serving. “End of argument.”

Jaal watched Kallo leave, frowning at the pilot’s back this time. “How do Salarians-”

With a startled flinch, Kallo practically leapt up the ladder to get away. “No,” he said from the top.

Jaal poked his head around the door to look up at him. “No?”

“No,” came the reply from Gil, on his way to Engineering. “That’s a four cup conversation. And I’m only on three, my friend,” toasting him with a full mug.

Kallo blinked twice. Of all people, Gil was the one to rescue him. “Ah. I see,” said Jaal, flicking his rofjinn into shape. “One for the Cultural Center. Or for four cups. I shall question later.”

That was enough for Cora to completely stop the conversation over the comms, possibly in an effort to prevent Vetra from shooting someone. “I know you all have places to be. Do you want to watch _The Council’s Guide to Interspecies Relations_ again for vid night tonight? Because this is how we watch it, if this discussion continues.”

“There’s a porn parody of that,” said Liam through the same comm line. “If anyone is interested.”

The ship was silent for exactly a minute before Kallo spoke again. “Just a little fact that I think you need reminded of. The Tempest is precisely 95.2 metres long and 49.6 metres wide, equipped with four main thrusters and four downward stabilisers, and is capable of thirteen long, hard lightyears per day in FTL. And I, ladies and gentlemen, sit in the pilot seat with my hands on the controls. How does that measure up to you all, again?”

Scott sat on Vetra’s work desk and looked at her very carefully as her mandibles twitched. She shut down her omni-tool and made a show of reaching for her gun, smiling at him. “Don’t hurt Kallo, babe,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “We need him to fly his cloaca extension, since none of us can.”

“Hey Kallo,” she said through the comms. “You don’t need your feet to pilot this thing, right? Just asking. For a friend.”

It turned out that Cora’s threat for vid night was fulfilled later that evening, as was Jaal’s predictable interest in watching the porn parody after. The Tempest crew were close, but not interspecies porn watching close, and a vote for Lexi’s awful doctor series was cast instead.

No one was allowed to mention centimetres again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Alas, no dicks were measured in the making of this fic, only egos. Sorry?


End file.
